Newer, Better, Stronger, More Mature

Netflix

I’ve streamed my way through The Secret Life of the American Teenager, The West Wing, Brothers & Sisters, Gossip Girl, Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, Switched at Birth, and American Pickers. I need some new viewing options. I’d like for you to add the following movies and TV shows for my streaming pleasure. Please and thank you.

xo xo

~ Carol Anne

My Wish List (in no particular order)

Bring it On (The Original)

Marie Antoinette

Save the Last Dance

Ten Things I Hate About You

A Cinderella Story

Raise Your Voice

Princess Diaries

Casablanca

Gone with the Wind

The Sound of Music

The Wizard of Oz

The Wedding Date

Rock of Love

Daisy of Love

Married to Rock

Almost Famous

Empire Records

Boys on the Side

Sisters (the NBC series from the 90s) — Not on DVD yet to my knowledge

THIS

Netflix is upping it’s subscription prices by 60%. No matter what I decide to do I’ll be paying more for less content. It seems Hollywood’s biggest movie studios were unhappy with Netflix’s pricing. They seem to believe their content is undervalued. I’d respectfully like to ask the studio that put out Transformers what a steaming pile of crap is worth, but I digress. My current bill of almost $10 is going up almost $6, that’s 60% more for the same product. I love Netflix and will be heartbroken when I do but I will cancel my subscription. Last November Netflix raised their prices by $1, now less than a year later I’ll be paying almost $7 more than what I signed up for and getting the exact same product. I’m not sure how Netflix thinks this benefits me as a consumer but whatever it is they are mistaken. Hollywood would do well to remember how poorly people looked upon the record industry as CD prices went up and up and up. I haven’t bought a physical CD or whole album on iTunes in I don’t know how long. On August 31 I’ll cancel my Netflix account because I cannot justify paying an additional $6 for the exact some product. Times are tough and Netflix you don’t make the cut in terms of my limited disposable income.

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THAT

I saw this in the Philadelphia Inquirer this morning. An essay written by Susan Quilliam, a sexologist was recently published in a British medical journal. In it she claims (cut and pasted directly from the Inquirer’s website) “a huge number of issues” that she and others see in clinics and therapy rooms can be traced to the influence of romantic fiction, where emotional decisions regularly trump rational ones.

Seriously? Do they honestly believe grown adults cannot discern fantasy from reality? Do they honestly believe adults are making sexual health decisions from scenes they read in romance novels?

Have we really come to this? What happened to good common sense and independent thinking? I don’t want to live in a society where we have to be cautioned against reading romance novels lest we be swept away by lust and have unprotected sex. If my fellow humans can’t control themselves after a reading a book for heaven’s sake I certainly don’t want them watching violent action movies.

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THE OTHER THING

President Obama says that if the debt ceiling issue is not resolved by August 2nd he cannot guarantee that the 70 million social security (all twenty billion dollars worth), veterans’, and disability checks will go out as scheduled the next day on August 3rd.

I think if an agreement cannot be reached and 70 million people suddenly find they have no source of income until the millionaires in D.C. can take their collective heads out of their collective asses then I say we need to find a lawyer file to a lawsuit to ensure that the president, the west wing staff and all of congress also do not get paid.

According to the conservatives government handouts make people lazy so let’s see how motivated the conservatives are when they no longer have their government handout. I mean it certainly cannot be considered to be a paycheck when they do so very little to earn it.

Of course a good deal of the folks representing us are millionaires so I’m sure they won’t miss their government paychecks. In fact, there’s an idea right there. All those who can afford to work for free should decline their government paychecks and invest that money back into the country. Of course they won’t because they are too greedy.

I have a few ideas about how to save the economy, pay down the deficit and get those rich folks tax breaks all while putting people back to work. Sounds like a win win scenario, doesn’t it? You can read them here.

I’m on news overload tonight. I’ve been watching the footage and reporting from the tornados down south and I’m overwhelmed with sadness. Until October of last year I had no idea what it was truly like for your life to change in a heartbeat. I watched as reporters asked survivors to tell their stories and you could tell some were just lost and in shock and standing there because the only other option was to not be standing there. There are more than 200 dead, countless others homeless and still more among the missing. How do you go on from something like this? As a friend said, where do you even start?

I had to turn the TV off at about 9pm. I just couldn’t process any more. I finished watching season 5 of Brothers and Sisters on Hulu so I could delete my free week trial before I had to pay for it. I loved being able to catch up to this week’s episode but hated being subjected to commercials when I was paying $7.99 a month for their service. I managed to watch all 20 of this season’s episodes before my free week trial was up so I didn’t have to pay. I think my next show to catch up on will be Army Wives. My mother loves it and it’s streaming on Netflix, which I love.

I think I’m going to stay up all night to watch the royal wedding on Fox 29. Their coverage starts at 1am EDT. I may decide to sleep for a few hours and get up for CNN’s coverage, which begins at 4am. The space shuttle Endeavour launches for its final mission at 3:47pm EDT tomorrow afternoon so it’ll be a full day of monumental occasions.

Well I think that’s enough scattered thoughts from me tonight. Thank you for stopping by every day to read and comment. I love and appreciate you all.

So it’s been a while since I’ve done a Pop Culture Potpourri post. I’m sorry about that. They’ll resume after surgery and radiation begins. My mind’s been other places and I just haven’t been able focus on the nonsense that I love so much.

BUT …

By happenstance or perhaps serendipity it came to pass that I was finally able to watch my way through the one and only season of My So-Called Life for the first time since it aired in the ’90s. It all started with a conversation with my friend Angel (hmmm … she inspires quite a few of these posts lately). On March 7th she mentioned spending a lost weekend watching her way through the box set. I was totally jealous. My So-Called Life is one of my most favorite TV shows ever, no one before or after has ever done teen angst better.

Later that day a Tweet from @Netflix appeared in my Twitter stream. It read, Hey Jordan Catalano and Angela Chase fans: you can instantly watch My So-Called Life. What show takes you right back to high school. I very nearly died from the happiness. I informed the hubs that there would be no cooking, laundry or conversation until I watched my way through the entire series. The Japanese earthquake occurred on that Friday so I put my viewing marathon on hold to watch the news footage and pray that the thousands missing after the tsunami would be found alive. I started watching the remaining episodes as a way to decompress from the wall to wall news coverage.

Once I started watching the show Angel and I chatted back and forth about it, making small comments here and there. And then, she messaged me asking, “so…what do you think *happened* (since the show stopped, rather than ended)” She believes …

Angela and Jordan get married and have a kiddo but end up splitting…she moves back home until she can get herself together, Brian comes to his mom’s house everyday to take care of things (because his dad died) and starts spending time with Angela and …her son…yeah…a son

and they ended up ~in love~ and get married…and have a little girl

then Brian’s mom passes away and they move into Brian’s old house to be near her parents (who stay together)

I finished watching the series and sat down to offer my opinion as to where everyone winds up. My views are a bit more pessimistic.

I think that Angela gets out of the car and goes to Brian. They spend all of high school and college together before splitting amicably and realizing they cannot grow w/o letting go of the security blanket their relationship has become.

Rayanne and Angela never make amends and Rayanne falls out of the picture completely. She’s Tino’s baby mama and a bartender at a biker bar. She occasionally lives with Amber when she and Tino are fighting. Amber currently has her man of the moment living with her. Rayanne and Tino’s kids are in foster care.

Sharon and Angela resume their friendship and stay friends for life. Brian comes home and eventually marries the twice divorced Sharon. Sharon’s a real estate agent. Brian’s a confident adult now (an engineer) and is the caretaker Sharon’s always been looking for. He of course still thinks she’s beautiful and considers her a trophy wife and showers her with all the material things she could ever want.

Ricky graduates high school and moves to New York where he is currently the gossipy but lovable maitre’d at Red Hook’s (Brooklyn) most talked about new Italian restaurant. It’s a small place where all the foodies in the know go.

Angela graduates college and moves to Philadelphia, where she writes a music column for Philadelphia Weekly. She’s single and mopey and has dated a string of sensitive ponytail guys. She’s single mostly because she’s inherited her mother’s judgmental and bossy ways while maintaining her father’s lack of a backbone making for a passive aggressive woe is me type character. She’s still above it all. She’s perfected the heavy sigh and eye roll.

Jordan has to die young. It’s just who he is. He’s the tragic figure. His band has a smattering of success and move to Los Angeles while record companies throw money, booze, drugs and women at them. They record one album, which doesn’t sell as expected and are dropped after their first tour also fails to get a buzz going. Despondent, Jordan falls deeply into drug addiction and ends up living on the streets before dying of a drug overdose (heroin).

Angela writes a book about Jordan and keeps a daily updated blog about his life.

Patty and Graham split shortly after the restaurant opens. Graham and Hailey are currently living together in a swanky apartment, where they throw a lot of parties and hang out with the “in crowd.”Danielle lives with them when she’s home from Temple University in Philly, where she’s studying to become a nurse.

Patty lives alone in the house, she’s as judgmental and bitchy and better than everyone else as she’s always been but now she’s bitter too. I don’t think she’s so much lonely as she is bitter that somewhere along the way people stopped taking orders from and deferring to her nagging pain in the ass self.

So what do you think? Where do think the characters end up? What do you believe their fate is? I’d love to read your opinions.

I had a good day today. My very good friend Rachel called to talk to me and we chatted for an hour or so. And if that wasn’t enough to make this a winning *laughs* day, I found out that My So-Called Life is now available to watch instantly on Netflix. I’ve warned the Hubs that food and laundry are on hold until I watch my way through. *laughs* Kidding. I’m just kidding. I think.